How Art and Podcasting Are Transforming Mental Health Advocacy

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Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show. Today we have mental health advocate, author, artist, podcaster Thomas Brown. Hey, what's up, Thomas, man? Welcome to the show.

What's up, CJ Moneyway Johnson? I really, really appreciate the opportunity to come in here and talk with you and share a little bit of my story with your audience. Thank you so much.

I'm grateful. And I appreciate you taking the time out today to come on the show, man, and share your story and your journey. So, Thomas, man, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.

Well, I live here in Phoenix, Arizona. I've always been a fan of storytelling, whether it's reading comic books, reading books, or watching movies. I've always had a need and a desire to create, whether it's writing or photography. I've always been a big fan of the visual arts. In 2012, along with a friend of mine, we rode our bicycles over 7,000 miles across the country for suicide awareness and the healing power of art. I had lost my brother in 2001, Mark Brown. He took his life. And when I met my buddy Zach in 2010, it was the first individual that I'd ever met that had also lost— first individual I had ever met that admitted and told me that he had lost somebody to suicide. And we just knew that there was something more to our friendship rather than like playing basketball, drinking beers, and talking about women that we were dating. There was so much more. So we decided to do this bike ride across the country. I was inspired a little bit by— after a conversation I had walked with a group of progressive Christians from Phoenix, Arizona to Washington, D.C. in 2006. And so when I was telling Zach that I had a desire to go out there and create purpose and meaning in my life again. And I would really like to, like, that experience of being on the road in an unconventional way. He made the suggestions, well, let's ride our bikes and let's do it for our brothers. And I was like, hell yeah, let's do it. Let's do this. So we had had that conversation in June of 2010. We made the decision finally in February of 2011 that we were going to do it. And then for the next 13 months, we had to plan, organize, and raise money so that we could exist, that we had places that we could go and people that we could talk to. And unfortunately, but important, funding in order for us to survive. Because it's one thing when you're just like paying to exist, but when you're burning as many calories as we were riding bicycles, you need to eat a lot more food. So, you know, we, we, we came up with a route which was probably the stupidest route anybody would have ever done. It was not a straight line. Instead of just going from San Francisco straight to Wappingers Falls, uh, to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors— and I'll get more on that— we did a giant W all the way through the country. So we're talking San Francisco to LA, LA to Phoenix, up into Denver, Boulder, all the way across to Omaha, down to Houston, across the Gulf States into Sarasota, and then all the way up, cut back inward, inland to Atlanta, and then made our way to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in Wappingers Falls, about 2 hours north of the city. Once we had our route, we started cold calling crisis centers. There was an index of support groups for people who lost loved ones to suicide through American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, the AFSP. And so I just cold called the crisis centers and support groups all along our route, told them our story, what we were doing, that we had both lost our brothers to suicide, and that we would love to come and just speak with your community and learn as much as we can from other people's experience. Like, who did they lose? You know, what was it like from law enforcement when the law enforcement was investigating? How were they treated? What was the initial reaction within their community? How are they treated by their community? What techniques did they learn to navigate their grief? For me, definitely, like, it took me 10 years, about 8 years till I got into therapy. And then another 3 years after that, I was on the bike ride. So I was just curious to see, like, what other people did and what, what, how other people navigated their, their trauma and their grief, because suicide is one of those It's almost like a taboo. People don't like to talk about it. And there's a historical reason behind that, which we learned. But for the most part, it's confusing for the person that lost somebody to suicide because you're sad about the person because they're gone, but you're also— you could be angry. That's a very normal, convoluted emotion of just like, I'm mourning this person that's gone, but I'm also furious at them. Because they took their life. It's also very confusing because people can get wrapped up into the woulda, coulda, shouldas, and that's never good for anybody. The most important thing that you can do, and I know it's easier said than done, but to accept what is and realize that there is nothing that you could have, should have, would have done that would have changed the outcome, that you just have to accept what is. And, uh, because when you get in that woulda, coulda, shoulda game, man, you're just going to circle the drain. It's just going to do more damage and prevent you from your healing process. And grief is weird. Grief is not a straight line. And no matter how many books you read on the subject of grief, no matter how many experts you talk to, no matter how many people you talk to that have had the similar experience, You're writing your own playbook for your grief. Grief is not a straight line. It's a zigzag. It goes back and forth. You could have 100 days where you're like, man, I'm like, I'm dealing with it. Yeah, I'm dealing with it. I'm living my life. And then you wake up one morning and you just want to cry. You didn't hear a song. You didn't smell a fragrance either from flowers or food. You know, there wasn't— nobody said anything. You just like— you could even wake up feeling good that morning and in the middle of the day and like, boom, it just hits you.

Yeah.

So it was really, really important for us to learn as much as we could about how other people navigated their grief and then to share what we did. It's all kind of all put together in my book, 2012: A Bicycle Odyssey. I think anybody that might check out that book, they're going to find that it's one part suicide loss survivor. Grief manual. It's one part beatnik, on-the-road adventure, and then there— it's one part kind of like, uh, an amalgamation of woo-woo spirituality and adoration for mythology. Um, I'm a big nerd. I don't know if you could see over my shoulder, I got The Empire Strikes Back, I got a hot— I got a hot toy of Deadpool and Luke Skywalker and some lightsabers. I'm a big nerd. I'm a big nerd. I grew up watching movies. My parents were taking me to movies they probably should not have been taking somebody in first and second grade to. I saw so many movies growing up. I adore movies. And it's kind of like— and the reason why I do is because it's storytelling, and it's, it's telling the human experience. And that's why I think I love these interactions. But we were talking before we started recording, just like how how amazing it is to talk with people, you know, new people that we've never met or may have never had the chance to meet, and just hear their stories. Uh, like, stories is what connects humans together. And so I'm a big fan of fictional stories as well because there's a reason why we are drawn to them. And I think if we're honest with ourselves, there's something about what each character is going through. Yeah, like, yeah, they might be just cool looking, you know, or they might be like just bad A and just like they can— you know what I mean? You like, you got like your, your Boba Fetts and your Darth Vaders or your Deadpools that are just characters that like can kick butt and like you just— they're awesome. But I think if we're truly honest with ourselves, we see things that we resonate with in stories, and it can be as something as fantastical as, as Star Wars, or even a movie that came out a few years ago, which is like one of my favorite movies in the last 20 years, Everything Everywhere All at Once. It could be something as absurd and fantastical as that, or it could be something that is like grounded, you know, in, in reality, like a day-to-day, like regular story, uh, whether it's a love story or, or a dramatic story. I think we see things We resonate with characters because we either see things and we see ourselves in them, or we see things that we would like to— a character attribute that we would like to work towards. So I try to design my book in a way to where it invites the reader to look at their life and look at their story and do everything they can to be the hero of their own journey. And for their circle of influence.

Mm, sounds pretty interesting, man, you know, as far as you saying, you know, just to have that creative mind where you trying to draw people with creativity, with real life situations, but at the same time, you know, just take the ease off but still pay attention and get into it because there's nuggets in here that's helpful for people, like you say, that actually may have experienced what you and your friend have experienced and some of the other people that you've met along the way, you know. So I think that's real creative, man. Just to ask, man, how long did it take on that journey, man?

Okay, so, um, we scheduled in some breaks. We figured like, hey, we're out on the road, that we're gonna hit some cities we've never been to. And so let's take like a 5-day break while we're there. You know, a lot of times we were too tired to really go out and experience what the city had to offer, but we would see, you know, we would go to like little local spots and just hang out. So we, we took about 5 or 6 cities that we like, we're gonna spend 5 days here, rest up, get our, get our legs back, get our minds back. Because even though we were doing a lot of, a lot of cycling, it was the conversations we were having. We could be like riding for like 60 miles one day and then we have go and have like a 3-hour conversation with a group of like 100 people. So it took us 7 months, over 7 months, to, uh, get from the Golden Gate Bridge, uh, to— in San Francisco to Wappingers Falls, New York, uh, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. So, but we kind of built that in. I mean, it was literally over 7,000 miles from beginning to end. It's not 7,000 miles from Pacific to Atlantic. If you were to get in a car and drive in a straight line, it's not that far. We just, we just did a giant W and like, let's see how many places we can go, you know. You know, we were, we were full of piss and vinegar in the beginning, and by the time we got to the end, like, we were different.

Yeah, I bet you were.

Yeah.

So I do, I do want to make like another point on why we, um, ended at an art retreat center and what that has to do with like suicide. So storytelling, I feel like it is a form of creativity, and we do it and we participate in it every single day. You could tell if somebody's just telling you about their day, you can tell if they're a good storyteller or not. You know, you're like, sometimes you're like, get to the point, get to the point. Other times you'll be like, get to the point, get to the point. But they've intentionally taken you on a long journey for a small cup of water, you know what I mean? So we felt that art and creativity is a monumental tool for anybody dealing with any type of mental health issues or any type of sadness or depression. That art brings us together. Think about a concert and everybody coming together. Think about listening to any type, whether it's a musical concert, whether it's a stand-up comedy, whether it's spoken word poetry readings, something that gathers people together. And it can either be at a giant venue or it can be somebody on the street and like people just crowd around. Like art and creativity bring us together. They lift us up. And Alex Gray and his wife Allison are the artists that own, that run the Art Retreat Center. They have a similar belief in the importance of the creative power of art, not only as the artist creating, but the audience who gets to witness is that there's something magical that happens, uh, between artist and an audience. There's like this transference, there's this exchange that can help even for like a simple moment. It can help elevate somebody's emotions, maybe like pull them up a little bit out of like darkness and, uh, give them a bit of happiness. So we— that was like one of the things that we preached the most is the importance of art and creativity and finding for yourself what it is to be a creative person, that that's part of your journey, that you don't have to like— you don't have to like garner adulation. You don't have to, you know, make a lot of money at it, but just do it for the sake of creating art. And what it does for you and also, hopefully, for your circle of influence. I mean, there's some people that might read this book or might even hear this conversation and we'll never know how much it changed them. I was unskilled and you trained me.

I was forgotten and you reached out to me.

I was fatherless and you nurtured me.

I was broken and you mended me.

As Jesus says, "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do unto me." Support a child in his name through Compassion International at compassion.com/untome.

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You will be like God.

Human unity with God was severed, and through it all, God's promise remained true.

Follow me, Abram, and I will make you great.

This is The Chosen People. Listen to The Chosen People at thechosenpeople.com. That's thechosenpeople.com.

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So, and I think that's important in creating art, is like the ripples that, uh, you'll never be aware of.

Yeah. So speaking, staying on that level right there, man, speaking of creativity, tell us a little bit about your love for motion photography.

So I went to film school. I went to film school. I couldn't, you know, for the longest time, this is weird. Writing was, is my dragon. It was my dragon for the longest time. People used to make fun of me all the time. For my grammar and my spelling, and it really just made me afraid of writing.

Mhm.

But I loved videography, I loved photography, I loved playing with digital and analog film, and I really got into it my senior year in high school. And then with the death of my brother and some other issues that I was dealing with Like, I didn't get into school until later on in my late 20s, but I just fell in love. I wanted to, like, make movies. And going to film school and working on other people's film projects, there's a lot of hurry— there's a lot of hurry up and then wait. And they're like 16-hour days. Even on a film school set, you could have like long 16, 18, 20-hour days. You're not getting paid, you know. And but it's, it's just the, the idea of like being on a set and, and being creative and, and, and the problem solving that you have to do depending on the type of film that you want to do. Because it's one thing to like write a script and then do your storyboards and then do all your location scouting, but once you're there and like life happens you have to become like a problem solver and figure out how to, how to get the, the most out of your shot based on what resources you have. So I've just always been a fan of that. I didn't get comfortable with my writing again until I took a screenwriting class, and I found that like screenwriting is different from like other forms of literature because you don't really— I mean, yeah, you need to have grammar and things need to be spelled correctly, but you write— it's a different muscle when you write scripts. You write the way people talk, you know, and that's like the most important thing. So I found that I was actually really, really— I was pretty good at screenwriting. But then this bike ride idea came up and I, I left school. I had done like a lot of films, won a few awards locally for the stuff that I had done, but the bike ride was, was the important thing to me. And it's funny is that I had every intention of making a documentary about our journey, what we learned, and how people could navigate suicide, but we didn't raise enough money for me to hire somebody to come with us and like operate the camera. So I tried my best at the beginning to do that Zach didn't have the mindset of a filmmaker to like have the camera out whenever he was away from the car.

Yeah.

And so it was really me just shooting footage of him, interviewing him, shooting footage of our environment, and then interviewing a lot of people that we met along the way. So there was just like an element of it, and it just got really, really exhausting where like by the time we were halfway through it, I wasn't even shooting the environment we were in. I was just interviewing people, and I'm glad that I did that because that became the ultimate resource for the book. Like, I would go back and I would like watch some of the footage in the early part of the tour of the play— the environments we were riding through so I could describe them, explain them, maybe listen to some complaining between Zach and I if we were on the camera. But then, like any type of interviews that I did, I was able to use that to kind of like navigate and tell the story of like what we were learning from other people. So even though I didn't get to make the film that I wanted to make, when I got home, I was like, well, I love visual art, I love photography, I love films, and I love documentaries. Let me do the one thing that I'm terrified of. I'll write a book. So, um, yeah, it took me a while, but like, I still have a love for film. I love doing photography. Most of my Instagram— I have two different Instagram accounts, and one of them is just me taking pictures whenever I see something interesting. Like, the way that I navigate the world, I see in frames. I see the world that I live in in frames. So like, when I'm driving down the street, I like, I'll just like quickly in my mind's eye Like I take like a snapshot, boom, like of the environment, like the road and the vanishing point and how like the telephone poles are all lined up. Like when I'm at work and I'm dealing with a patron and somebody's over their shoulder and looking at me or looking away, like if I could take a picture in any situation that I'm in at any given time, even at work where people wouldn't, wouldn't like freak out. I would do it. I would do it all the time. Like, I'm constantly taking pictures in my head of my environment and looking at how light, you know, how light is cast and, and how it spreads along like a floor, a ceiling, an object, how light is shaped by and shadows are created by objects. I'm constantly like, I just live in that visual world. And so it's been very interesting journey for me to translate how I see things visually into words. Because I, I say this about emotions a lot of time, that like the spectrum of emotion is so vast that there are probably emotions that we have as human beings that we just don't have words for. And that's where poetry comes in. That's where the importance of being poetic. So it's been interesting to like see things and like ask myself, how do I respond to this beautiful image or this sad image that I'm looking at? And then try to translate that. If I can't find a single word, how can I string some words together in a metaphor or in a sense like, like in a poetic way to where hopefully other people who read it will feel the same thing that I felt in that moment. So it's been like a really interesting journey to go from like being obsessed with all things visuals to then trying to describe them in the written word. So I could talk about movies and comic books and photography all day. Like, I'm, I'm a big nerd about all that stuff. I already got my ticket. I got 2 sets of tickets for Deadpool.

I'm all about it. So you ready? I'm ready. Yeah, that's pretty interesting, man.

Don't miss out on CJ Moneyway Johnson's book Both Eyes Open and Both Eyes Shut. And get ready to preorder his upcoming release, The Issues of Life, coming soon. Moneyway, aiming to inspire.

So you also have a podcast. What is your podcast based on?

I have two podcasts. One I haven't recorded because it's a conversational interview, like, like the way that yours is set up. It's for mental health. That one's called Inner Monologue. I haven't recorded a new one in a while because I've been focusing I had to finish the book. My mom passed away. I had to finish the book. Yeah, she died of cancer last year. My mom passed away. I kind of take care of my dad. I had to finish the book and now I want to promote the book. I've been talking to people for 7 years and giving them a platform to share their story. So now I feel like it's my turn to provide some of that for me. So I'm always open for a guest that is willing and somebody that I trust. One thing with the pandemic, that being in a space, the mental health space, you get a lot of, uh, interesting folks that believe interesting things. And the last thing I want to do is have somebody on and halfway through the current conversation they start promoting the health benefits of drinking their own urine. So, um, I don't want to give somebody like that a platform, you know. And You'd be surprised at some of the kooky things people come up with in the wellness space, man. So, like, I've just been like, kind of like, as soon as I find somebody that's willing to do it, I'll get right back to Inner Monologue. I won't be a weekly show. It'll be like when I have the time and somebody else, but I still have 300 episodes that people can sift through. Amazing conversations with amazing people. And so the other podcast that I do, it's kind of like an every other week show. It's more of an audio diary, and that one's called Stages. I started that 6 months after my mom died, so it's just me talking about navigating my mental health and the different stages of life as I'm well into my middle age. And, you know, how to grieve while, uh, the loss of my mom, while also supporting my father as he grieves. After he had been married for 57 years and now he's alone. So that's been helpful for me to just, like, I'll just sit in this room. I don't even know what I'm going to talk about. I'll just hit record and I just ramble for 20 minutes. And sometimes it's really sad. Sometimes it's funny. I think it's important to be able to laugh at our trauma. Not laugh at it in order to run away from it, but laugh at it in spite of it. You know, just be like, man, things are crazy, you know, because it's crazy for everybody. And I think it's just sometimes, like, at my work— I work at a library, and I laugh at the darkest things all the time. And you just, you have to in order to get by, I think. I think laughter is like a great medicine for us. So those, but those are my podcasts. And, uh, They're both on the same channel. It's called Rise Frequency. I didn't want to create different channels for different podcasts because who knows what I'll come up with next.

Yeah.

So I just have Rise Frequency and then I differentiate. Both of them have separate names and logos. So if Inner Monologue would come up, you'd see the Inner Monologue. It would say Inner Monologue, then the episode, and then the name of the guest. And with Stages, it would have the Stages logo and then it would be titled Stages, the episode, and then whatever the episode's called. So, I didn't want to confuse people with what they were watching. So, they can visually, if they navigate the Rise Frequency Podcast, they'll be able to find, differentiate between the two podcasts. And that's on— you can find it through my website at risephoenix.org as well as the link for the book. But you could also go to Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts at. Also, as we said before the show, like, it's just having that, that outlet to chat with people. Yeah, it's just, it's great.

Yeah.

I mean, 300 episodes, man. You was putting in some work, brother.

Yeah, I was, I was, dude, I was banking episodes too. And if somebody had something that they were trying to promote, I would put them ahead of the line. But at one point, I had like 4 months of episodes banked.

Yeah.

And then I took like a month off from interviewing people, and then I would get right back to it. And I would record like 3 to 5 conversations a week.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I know what you mean. I know the technique. When I first started, I had— I didn't have no time limit to start, so yeah, I tried to get ahead of the game. Right now, like you said, I think I probably had like 6 banked with so many other interviews coming, you know what I'm saying, coming up or whatever. It's a process, people. They—

that ain't—

it is—

don't do it. It is a process when you have to, especially when you're doing it by yourself and having to promote it and then have to upload it and then have to market it. And then, you know, it's And it's a fun grind, I'll put it that way.

It totally is. And you know, I think one of the things that burned me out too, like besides just life, I was doing it before PodMatch. I just asked people, I just asked around, and like sometimes like somebody would be on the show and then they would refer me to somebody else. But I had— I waited till I had at least 30 episodes banked before I published the first one. So, and what I would do, you know, like if I talk to somebody and like they're like 10 or 15 weeks away, but they're not trying to promote anything, every single episode that I did, I always recorded a monologue where the monologue would be, you know, like it'd be like 5, 7 minutes of me where I would— gave me the opportunity to kind of reflect on what was happening in the world, reflect on any weird things that happened in my life, and then, and then kind of, uh, introduce the guests, uh, without them there and talk a little bit about them. And then we would fade to music and then fade into a conversation already in progress. So like, I had this whole, like, every— before, before every episode I always had to sit the day before, I had to sit down and record a monologue and then edit everything together. And I never, again, I never knew what I was going to say. You just, you know, I just like sit there and then I'd hit record and I would just, I would ramble. Sometimes I'd have to like stop it, delete it, and start all over again, you know. And like until I got it. For a while I had my partner Sharon, because it was so, it was so weird like recording talking on a microphone to no one. Like, I wasn't doing it online. There was nobody in front of me. I was just trying to record the monologue. So I'm just by myself. So after a while, I just had my partner sit in front of me. I was like, just, I just need somebody to look at while I'm talking.

Yeah. Yeah. It is better when you're talking to people, you know, opposed to when you talking by yourself and you just got to keep it keep it going. Yeah. If you have somebody with you, you can be like, you see what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. It's like you got a support system, but when you actually by yourself, you just by yourself, and then you wonder, then you have to think, it's in the back of your mind how people gonna receive this.

Yeah.

You know, so yeah, I know the grind, man. Yeah, yeah. Uh, so Thomas, man, so what motivates you to wake up every morning looking to help others, man?

I heard—

I, I, when I read that question, I loved it, and I might give you a different answer from what I, I wrote. I just— I try to— one of the things that I want to do is just be an example for people letting them know it's okay to share. You know, like, I, I'm a supervisor at the library. I have 8 people underneath me. And one of the most— like, when I'm hiring somebody, it's like, can you— are you smart enough to learn the job? That's number one. Number two, are you going to be a good component to the character ecosystem that I'm cultivating? Like, when I have to be here for 40 hours a week, I want to enjoy myself. I want to know that you're going to do your job, but I also want to know that you're not going to bring any headaches for me or anybody else and that we're going to be happy together. So, in order to ask that of people, I feel that it's my job to be that. So, you know, my door is always open to all of my staff and any other people that work in the building. I'm often asking my supervisors how they're doing emotionally. I just I just try to promote the importance of sharing what we're going through and not just being machines when somebody's like, "Hey, how's your day?" "Oh, I'm living the dream." Usually when people say that to me, I'm like, "Are you? Are you living the dream? Is your 8-year-old self looking at you right now and being like, 'Yep, this was the dream. This is exactly where I wanted to be'?" You know? So I kind of help people to pull out on that, but like, I just, I think it's important for us to be honest with ourselves. And like, I just try to promote that as much as I can just through how I behave. So I, whenever somebody asks me how I'm doing, I, I, I'm, I'm, I try to be as honest and real and authentic with them as, as, as I can. Uh, one of the things that I promote in the book, and it's a, it's a deep belief that I have. It's, it's part of like my own kind of like evolving philosophy, is that the only game in town is self-awareness. You can be whatever political affiliation you are, you could be whatever spiritual— you could have whatever spiritual practice you have, but if you don't know who you are and why you do the things that you're doing, or why you feel the things that you're doing, and knowing where all of your influences stop and where you begin Like, what are you doing? Like, that's our— I feel like that's our only job in life, is to know who we are. Because like, you could do— if you want to, if you want to piss everybody off in your life and alienate everybody, there's still one person that you're stuck with, and that's you. So it's like, you should get to know who that person is. So like, that's another thing that like, when I get up in the morning, I'm gonna be as like, as real as I can. I'm gonna be who I can. I'm gonna, you know, not be rude to people, but I'm gonna express how I'm feeling, and I'm going to use my words to communicate and show people that boundaries are healthy, communication is healthy, and being real and honest is healthy. And the only way I can do that is through my own practice of self-awareness to figuring out where all my blind spots are in my character. And I— the thing about self-awareness and a practice of self-awareness is that it never ends. You don't, you don't, you don't get to a mountaintop, you know. It ends when you end, you know what I mean?

So yeah.

I just try to like promote that. And that's just something that I want. Like whenever anybody comes to me and I'm like, why are you doing the thing that you're doing? Why do you— how do you feel about it? Why do you think you feel that way? Like, I kind of take them on their own journey to like, kind of like help them, like, pay attention to their story. Like, you're at this moment in time for a reason. Like, let's hit rewind and like go through your story, understand your story, know your story. Make sure that it's your story and not somebody projecting their story onto you.

Mm. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. And so, man, I just got one more question for you as we about to wrap this up. What advice would you give to aspiring authors and artists?

You're going to be your biggest critic.

Mm-hmm.

You're going to be your biggest critic. Um, but I would say if you're not doing it— if you're doing it to make money, I would say check yourself. If you're doing it because you want fame and adulation, check yourself.

Check yourself.

You, you should be doing it because you love it as much as you love anything else worth loving in your life. You should be doing it because it's like air, food, and water. If it's removed from you, you will die. And do it just to do it and create beautiful things and know and keep doing it because you're going to know that, man, you're going to come up with some dumb ideas. You're going to write and you're going to create stupid things. You're going to create things that seem lazy or they're unfinished. Like, if you read— if you— if any of you out there get my book and you read it, you would be astonished at what version you're reading, you know? Like, just so— just keep— just keep at it. Keep creating. Keep— keep— and, and, and, and learn what your process is. Like, just— I, I just— I just— I just— whenever I find out, like, that somebody is creative, like, I just try to build them up as much as possible, tell them what they're doing is beautiful, that it's their own journey, but it's got to be— you got to be doing it because you love it, not for fame, not for fortune, just because it's like air to you. And it's like anything else in life, you have to give it time and attention. So give it time and attention. You're not going to miss, you know, going out and partying with with your friends, as much as I've done that so many times in my life, the hangover the next day isn't worth the time you provide to your craft.

Invest in yourself.

Yeah.

Invest in yourself. And if you invest in yourself, then that's a valuable investment because it's for me. It's not for somebody else. It's not me working at a job and I'm doing it for them. This is for me. And so yeah, I get it, man. So Thomas, man, where can we find you at on social media?

Yeah.

You got any other projects coming up that we can look forward to?

I will. I hope— hopefully it won't take very long for me to write my next book. I'm—

I've—

as much as I love visuals, I've fallen in love with words. So I don't know if that came through in this interview. I might have rambled a lot, but I liked the feeling of stringing together the perfect sentence. It's a good feeling. So I'm working on a follow-up to 2012: A Bicycle Odyssey. That's going to be more of like a philosophical book. It's probably going to be a pretty small book, but it's going to be more of like talking about self-awareness and the importance of self-awareness in navigating your mental health. I'm also writing a modern-day science fiction, uh, that I've had, that I've been kind of like writing an outline on for like the last 10 years. So I'm like, I can't do that until I finish this. Um, so those are the two things that I'm really like working on right now. Uh, where to find me? If you go to risephoenix.org, you'll find the book. There's going to be a link for the book. I sell that through Amazon. There's going to be a link to the podcast there's going to be a link to our Facebook and Instagram. I also just created a TikTok under Rise Frequency. That's been interesting. Being 46 years old and being on TikTok, it makes me feel like I'm chaperoning a 7th grade dance. It's weird, but I'm finding my niche in it.

Hey, I know what you mean. I'm 50, so I know exactly what you mean, brother.

I'm well with you.

Right, it's a different ball game, but at the same time, we gotta— you gotta adapt, you know?

Yeah, totally.

Keep up with, with what's going on, man. So, uh, I really appreciate you coming on the show today, man. Very interesting comic book, man. Uh, Deadpool, Darth Vader. Hey, but I really enjoyed it, man. We enjoyed everything that you said, man. So, uh, go grab the book from my man Thomas Brown. What's the name of the book again, Thomas?

2012: A Bicycle Odyssey. And I'll show it right here for your audience so that they know what they're looking for, I went for with a simplistic cover. So you'll learn about my obsession with turtles.

With turtles?

Yeah, yeah, there's a thing, there's a thing with turtles on there. So, uh, people look at the COVID of the book and be like, what the hell is that turtle for?

You'll find out, man. Hey, go grab the book from my man Thomas Brown, who Obsessed with Turtles 2012: A Bicycle Odyssey. You have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your man CJ Moneyway and Thomas Brown. We outta here.

Peace.

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